


Post-Payoff

by suganegg



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games), Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma - Fandom
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Spoilers, canon compliant aside from ignoring the epilogues, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7517986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suganegg/pseuds/suganegg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and Junpei discuss the effects SHIFTing has had on them, and come to terms with their feelings for each other. (Contains endgame spoilers.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Post-Payoff

**Author's Note:**

> as much as i like ztd, i hate the epilogues, which is partially why i wrote this. the other reason is because i'm super interested in thinking about the effects SHIFTing through timelines has on everyone, because i feel like you can't come out of all that without being at least a little messed up. imo, there's no way junpei could be completely alright six months down the line when he's been in two nonary games within a year or two of each other, complete with SHIFTing antics, and when he's already developed alcoholism and depression as a result of his detective job. so, that's why i put all this on him lmao. i really wouldn't be surprised if he ended up with ptsd after everything.

“Do you ever wonder if we deserve this?” Junpei asks suddenly, gripping the glass in his hands tighter. It’s water, instead of alcohol; he’s been trying to cut habits ever since their escape from Dcom.

“What are you talking about?” Carlos replies, turning his attention to the man next to him.

They’re set up on the sofa in the apartment that Carlos shares with his sister—or will be sharing, when she’s discharged from the hospital. Carlos had been insistent that Junpei and Akane come visit and meet her, but with all the business that had to be dealt with in regards to finding the religious fanatic, Akane had sent Junpei by himself to give the siblings her regards. The two had dropped by Maria in the hospital earlier in the day, and were now killing time together. They had picked an old movie to watch, the one about the boy who goes back in time to get his parents together; a little on the nose, maybe, but it had felt like a good choice. At any rate, the movie had gone largely ignored as the they caught up with each other.

“ _This_ ,” Junpei says, gesturing around the room. “Being here. Being alive.”

“You mean how we had to SHIFT with the versions of ourselves that won the coin toss.” Carlos clarifies.

“Yeah.”

“If we hadn’t, we would’ve died.”

"That’s the problem! We _have_ died.” Junpei snaps, looking at Carlos for the first time in the conversation. “We died in that blast, but the bodies we left behind, they weren’t the us here now. We’re not _from_ this timeline, we just forced ourselves into it. It’s like Diana said, the ones we replaced were innocent—all they did was win a coin toss.”

Concern clouds Carlos’ face as he stares at his friend, Junpei’s expression like a flashback to the desperation he had shown in the bomb shelter. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

"I… I don’t know. A while, I guess. I didn’t want to think about it at first, but it keeps coming back to me.”

"Have you talked about it with Akane?”

Junpei shakes his head. “No. I can’t.”

Junpei turns away and sets his glass on the table. He forces out an uneven breath as he hangs his head and rubs his hands over his face. Carlos watches without speaking, not wanting to interrupt but to instead let Junpei continue at his own pace.

“I know what I said back then, when we were making our choice.” Junpei says from behind his hands. “But still, the more I think about it… What gives _us_ the right to be here? We’re living borrowed lives.”

“We're just the ones that survived.” Carlos answers. “We had the knowledge of all the other timelines and the ability to SHIFT. It’s just luck that it was the “us” here who made it out. We just as easily could have been a version that died.”

They go silent, the minutes ticking by measured by the murmur of the television and the footsteps of the neighbors upstairs. Junpei lifts his hands from his face but doesn’t look at Carlos, just stares blankly ahead.

“I can’t tell sometimes.” Junpei says finally, his voice soft. “If I’m the true Junpei, the one who made it out alive in the right timeline. I have dreams about the times we died, and they feel so real that when I wake up—”

Out of the corner of his eye, Junpei sees Carlos move. He turns his head just in time to register the blur coming towards his face, but can’t react before Carlos’ fist connects with his jaw, the force of the punch nearly knocking Junpei off the couch.

“Ouch! What the hell, man?!” Junpei yells.

“Did you feel that?” Carlos asks.

“What? Of course I felt that, you ass—”

Carlos grabs the sides of Junpei’s face, staring with conviction into his eyes. “Then that means you’re _alive_. You’re here with me, in the present. We’re real and we got out together with everyone else. Trust me, Junpei.”

Junpei blinks at Carlos, opening and closing his mouth as he starts to say something, then decides against it.

“…Did you have to punch me to tell me that?” He finally settles on.

“Sorry,” Carlos chuckles sheepishly, dropping his hands. “Consider us even now, for when you punched me in the shelter.”

“You brought that on yourself,” Junpei mumbles good-naturedly.

Carlos looks from Junpei down at the hand where the thick metal bracelet that had helped to bind him in a game of life or death sat, the hand that he lost in another time. He balls that hand into a fist, his nails digging into his palm.

“I understand where you’re coming from, though.”

“Huh?”

“I know all about the other versions of myself, the doomed ones and the ones that died because another Carlos SHIFTed with them. I have the same doubts, too, that I’m not the “true” version, or that I’m not actually alive.”

“Carlos…”

“So, I get what you’re going through.” Carlos emphasizes, opening his hand and looking back at Junpei. “But we can’t let it get to us.”

"Yeah?” Junpei challenges, crossing his arms and looking like a spitting image of the Junpei that Carlos knew during the nonary game. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

“Find something to believe in, something that’s solid and real. I have Maria and my job. You have a job, too—one to save the lives of the entire human race. You have Akane and…” Carlos pauses, takes a breath before reaching out and putting his hand on Junpei’s shoulder. “And you have me.”

“What are you…”

“I like you, Junpei.” Carlos says, deciding to be straightforward and just come out with it. “As more than just a friend. I don’t know when I realized it exactly—there’s another me, the one that waited 10 months to rescue you and Akane, and I think he figured it out sooner. But either way, we reached the same conclusion in two different timelines, so that must mean something.”

Junpei says nothing to this confession, just bites his lip and furrows his brow. But, he doesn’t try to move Carlos’ hand, and he maintains eye contact with the other man nonetheless.

“After everything we went through,” Carlos continues, “I don’t think there’s anyone who understands me better. There’s no one else out there who I could meet that would ever be able to relate to what happened to us. When I try to picture it, I can’t imagine being with anyone but you.”

“Shit, Carlos,” Junpei breathes.

“I understand if you don’t feel the same, since you’re in love with Akane. And believe me, I wouldn’t ever want to do something that would get between the two of you. Honestly, I almost decided not to tell you, but Maria convinced me to do it. It’s better that—”

In some attempt of a romantic gesture, Junpei surges forward, fully intending to stop Carlos with a kiss. Instead, what stops him is their foreheads smashing together, and Junpei’s teeth colliding with the skin above Carlos’ lip, nowhere near on target. They reel back from one another, Junpei rubbing his forehead as Carlos checks himself for blood.

“Were you trying to kiss me, or was the headbutt intentional?” Carlos asks, incredulous.

“It was _supposed_ to be a kiss,” Junpei says defensively. “It seemed like a good idea, you know, like in the movies. I guess I really am bad with this stuff, huh?”

Carlos can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all, much to the other’s chagrin. Junpei huffs, pushing against Carlos’ shoulder with staged hostility.

“C’mere,” Carlos tells him, gesturing Junpei over.

The two lean towards one another, this time sure and steady unlike Junpei’s rushed and spontaneous attempt. Junpei reaches for the front of Carlos’ shirt as Carlos’ own hand finds the back of Junpei’s head, fingers entwining with his hair as he guides Junpei over. They meet in the middle, properly this time, lips-on-lips without any pain involved.

“We’re going to have to tell Akane,” Carlos says as they part, moving to clasp his hand over Junpei’s.

“About that… She already knows.”

Carlos raises an eyebrow at Junpei, waiting for the explanation. Some part of him wonders if the answer is going to be that his apartment is bugged and that she was watching it all happen through hidden cameras, despite how nonsensical it is.

“I talked to her before, about how I thought I might have feelings for you.” Junpei explains, casting his gaze away. “Akane told me she already figured it out, thought it was great that I have two people so important to me. She encouraged me to confess to you on this trip, and I was going to, but I was waiting for the right moment, and then you went and did it first.”

Junpei looks back at Carlos, drawing his expression into a scowl that didn’t appear half as intimidating as he was trying to make it. “Completely unfair, by the way.”

Carlos laughs again, and gently presses his forehead against Junpei’s as relief and happiness mingle and wash over him.

“Junpei, has anyone ever told you how cute you are?”

**Author's Note:**

> i'll be real, ot3-ing it isn't even my preference, but i recognize akane/junpei as being canon so what's a girl to do.


End file.
